“Greetings, my friend. You are interested in the unknown. The mysterious. The unexplainable. That is why you are here. And now for the first time, we are bringing you the full story of what happened. We are giving you all the evidence, based only on the secret testimony of the miserable souls who survived this terrifying ordeal. The incidents, places… My friend, we cannot keep this a secret any longer. Can your heart stand the shocking facts of the true story of…” the making of The Room?

Leading up to the release of The Disaster Artist, James Franco’s comedic account of the making of the 21st century’s truest bona fide cult movie The Room, many have understandably drawn comparisons to Tim Burton’s masterpiece Ed Wood. Like Ed Wood, The Disaster Artist seems to say to us out of the gate, “Look, we know that you know it didn’t really happen like this, but this is how it should have happened, so let’s just have some fun” (though in many ways it would appear that the true story was even stranger than what we see here). Also just like Ed Wood, The Disaster Artist benefits greatly from this approach.

Franco’s film even starts off similarly, first with actors giving testimonials about The Room followed by the introduction of our protagonists in a small local theater. It’s San Francisco in 1998 and young Greg Sestero (Dave Franco) is a struggling actor who is chided by his teacher (Melanie Griffith) for his lack of emotion through two months of class. When she looks to the rest of the room for an actor willing to bear his or her soul on stage, she has a taker in the mysterious Tommy Wiseau (James Franco). Bearing his soul and then some, Tommy’s strangeness doesn’t put off Greg who is astounded by Tommy’s commitment. The two become fast friends despite Tommy’s odd behavior as Tommy inspires Greg to come out of his shell.

Emboldened by one another they decide it’s time to take the leap and move to Hollywood to grab the film industry by the tail. As is so often the case however, they find nothing but failure for several months before Greg’s offhand comment about wishing they could just make their own movie lights a spark inside of Tommy. He’s going to write a movie for them to star in together. Something about real human behavior and it’s called…The Room.

In the 14 years since its release, The Room has become a midnight movie staple, playing to packed houses and building a legion of fans all over the world. People have a far greater love for it than many much better films (which of course most movies are). Its popularity and legacy are due to the fact that so many people have so much fun watching it. Most bad movies are boring. It’s a large part of what makes them so bad. People react differently to The Room however, in much the same way that people react to Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space and Glen or Glenda.

In the interest of full disclosure I’ll just tell you, I have never seen The Room outside of a handful of scenes. The idea of watching bad movies to mock them has never had much appeal for me. I only have so much time to watch movies and only so much money I can spend to see them so I would rather focus on things that I expect at least have a chance to be good. I feel like that approach has served me well for the most part, but… I now feel like it led me to miss out on the phenomenon of The Room as it started to pick up steam. What Franco and screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (500 Days of Summer) capture beautifully- even for viewers like me who have never seen The Room– is what appeals to so many people about Wiseau’s opus. Wiseau’s mind is a strange and fascinating place as presented by Franco’s hilarious yet emotionally raw performance. It’s no wonder Wiseau would create something so watchable.

As long as we’re drawing comparisons to Ed Wood, Wiseau comes across like something of a combination of Johnny Depp’s Ed and Martin Landau’s Bela Lugosi. Tommy’s commitment to and belief in his dream and vision (in spite of his egregious lack of talent) are coupled with his volatile temper. Franco is incredibly funny while also showing us a man who we often can’t stand (or understand), but one we can have some sympathy for. Beyond that though, the greatest triumph of Franco’s performance and film overall is that it’s impossible not to have admiration for Tommy. Regardless of the end result, Tommy saw his vision through to the end, all with his own money (the source of which remains a mystery).

As Greg, Dave Franco really represents the audience as we share his frustrations. Making incredible sacrifices in both his professional and personal lives, Greg stands by Tommy through it all and Dave Franco lets us in to see why. The real life brothers playing off of each other make us forget that’s what they are and lets us see instead the brotherhood forged between these two decidedly unlikely friends. The portrayal of this friendship is ultimately the strongest element of The Disaster Artist and what makes it more than just the chronicling of a famously terrible movie.

The rest of the standout cast includes Seth Rogen, Alison Brie, Paul Scheer, Josh Hutcherson, and Jacki Weaver as people who react to Tommy as the vast majority of us almost certainly would upon meeting him. Understandably, their experience working with him is a largely unpleasant one, but what they couldn’t have possibly seen at the time is what it was in service of: a work of art that would make its mark upon the world in the most unique of ways. Say what you will about Tommy Wiseau or The Room, but how many filmmakers or films are worthy of getting their own- largely affectionate- movie made about them? It’s a short list but it includes Edward D. Wood, Jr. and Tommy Wiseau.

Citizen Kane. Casablanca. Lawrence of Arabia. Dr. Strangelove. Films considered by virtually all movie buffs to be amongst the greatest ever made. Classics. But there are so many wonderful movies that for one reason or another have fallen through the cracks and don’t get the recognition they truly deserve. In this new series I will be writing about and hopefully encouraging people to discover the classics that they’ve been missing. Movies like Bad Day at Black Rock, Hud, and L.A. Story just to name a few. I’ll be looking at the film, the era in which it was released, and other popular movies released in that era. For the first entry I’m writing about one of my favorite movies ever made and one that makes me laugh no matter how many times I see it, Albert Brooks’ Real Life.

…

The 1999-2000 TV season introduced American audiences to two shows that would change television forever. While so called “reality television” was nothing new, shows like Fox’s Cops and MTV’s The Real World were outliers. Major networks would air re-runs of scripted dramas and sitcoms all summer long, with very little original programming running between the end of May and the beginning of September. But as one millennium gave way to another, ABC’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (a game show but one that emphasized human drama more than something like Jeopardy!) and CBS’s Survivor broke through to become primetime smashes. This would prove to be anything but a fad with reality shows quickly becoming ubiquitous and remaining that way 18 years on. It would have only made sense for a comedian turned filmmaker to satirize the format around say, 2002. But why bother? Albert Brooks had already done it to perfection. In 1979.

Inspired by the 1973 12-part PBS documentary series An American Family, Brooks directed the film, co-writing it with Monica Johnson and Harry Shearer. In fact the film opens with the text of a quote by anthropologist Margaret Mead who described An American Family, “as new and as significant as the invention of drama or the novel…a new way in which people can learn to look at life, by seeing the real life of others interpreted by the camera.” Setting up the documentary style of Real Life the text describes the film as, “the next step. It documents not only the life of a real family, but of the real people who came to film that family, and the effect they had on each other.”

Brooks stars as a fictionalized, high-strung version of himself. A man thrilled to be embarking on a great experiment to film the lives of a real American family for one year. That lucky family happens to be the Yeagers from Arizona. Warren (Charles Grodin) is a veterinarian who’s very excited to be a part of the project. His wife Jeanette (Francis Lee McCain, Gremlins) however, and their two children are not so sure about being followed around with cameras for the next twelve months.

Albert is confident though. After all, the movie will be filmed with the unobtrusive Ettinauer 226XL, a camera that is worn by its operator like a space helmet. He proudly boasts of the Ettinauer’s, “omni-directional microphones,” and that it, “needs no special lighting and it uses no film.” With the real Brooks predicting the future yet again, Albert adds, “All picture and sound information is recorded digitally.” Putting a button on his description of the Ettinauer, Albert says with great satisfaction, “Only six of these cameras were ever made. Only five of them ever worked. We had four of those.” That line and the delivery of it are signature Brooks. Coming from stand-up comedy, Brooks carefully considers each and every dry word. Each one has a purpose. And it’s not simply the words themselves. It’s the order they’re spoken in and the inflection he brings to each individual one to maximize the line’s comic effect. This is hand-crafted comedy from a master on the subject.

With Warren on board as the project begins, the rest of the Yeager family reluctantly attempts to make the best of the situation. But despite the “unobtrusive” Ettinauer-wearing cameramen and Albert living all the way… across the street from the family, the constant awareness of being filmed at every moment can’t help but alter their behavior resulting in what one psychologist describes to Albert as, “a false reality.” It doesn’t take long for things to completely unravel for the Yeagers, for Albert, and for the production of the movie itself with the head of the studio insisting the film needs Robert Redford.

I’ve written about more than one mockumentary for this site and of course that’s largely due to the pervasiveness of the format. But Real Life has always felt like a little bit of a different animal to me, partially because of it being so far ahead of its time but also due to the lack of “talking head” interview segments. This fits Brooks’ style of humor though. He’s not terribly interested in jokes or letting the camera run for 15 minutes to allow Grodin, McCain, or himself to improvise, something that could have easily become self-indulgent. He finds comedy in people and the way in which they seem to almost inevitably embarrass themselves if they know they’re on camera. I would be very surprised to learn that there was any improvisation in the film. As noted above, Brooks is such a comedic craftsman that it’s hard to imagine him leaving things to chance or leaving potential laughs on the table because a word wasn’t pronounced just so. Plus the whole cast does an excellent job of staying in character from first frame to last. Nobody breaks character in pursuit of what they might believe to be a bigger joke with Brooks being smart enough to know that those jokes would ring false.

Real Life was released in an era where the biggest comedies tended to be on the broad side. The period between 1978 and 1980 saw the release of Animal House, The Jerk, Caddyshack, The Blues Brothers, and Airplane. I happen to like all of those movies a lot (particularly The Jerk) but it shows just how different Real Life was for a comedy of its time. The end of the film seems to be Brooks acknowledging that his movie won’t have the same kind of widespread acceptance as the more popular comedies of the time. “The audience loves fake,” a harried Albert tells his cameraman in the film’s closing moments. “They crave fake.” As he desperately tries to come up for an ending to his documentary Albert says, “There’s no law that says, ‘Start real, can’t end fake.’ What are they gonna do? Put me in movie jail? It’s a fake jail!” he declares, his voice raising to a high pitch. Again, it’s the delivery of the line that really makes it. It’s become one of my all-time favorite film quotes. This all leads to an ending worthy of Gone with the Wind. At least that’s what Albert tells himself.

Brooks would go on to make many more terrific comedies through the ‘80s and ‘90s, the best of which being 1985’s Lost in America which is my choice for a companion film. Always underappreciated, Brooks is one of the few comedians truly worthy of being called a genius. Really, that shouldn’t be surprising for a man born with the name Albert Einstein.

Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn) is desperate to get through her senior year of high school as it begins in the fall of 2002. She wants nothing more than to escape the boredom of being a teenager in Sacramento and to fly away to college in New York. Maybe that’s why she insists that people (including her own mother) call her “Lady Bird.” Written and directed by Greta Gerwig (an actress long favored by Noah Baumbach), Lady Bird is as much if not more an exploration of the complicated dynamics of a mother-daughter relationship as it is a coming-of-age tale. It was hardly surprising to learn that Gerwig’s original title for the film was Mothers and Daughters.

Coming from a lower middle class family that she jokes is from “the wrong side of the tracks,” (though there are in fact train tracks involved), “Lady Bird” doesn’t connect with her Catholic education at school and she is regularly butting heads with her critical mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf) at home. Her best friend Julie (Beanie Feldstein) excels at Lady Bird’s worst subject, math, while she also lands the lead in the school’s fall musical, which Lady Bird can only get a small part in. Things look up for Lady Bird, however, when she hits it off with Danny (Lucas Hedges, Manchester By the Sea) during play rehearsals and she starts to set her sights on applying for financial aid to universities in New York, a secret between Lady Bird and her more understanding father, Larry (Tracy Letts). Marion doesn’t want Lady Bird going to school any farther away than UC-Davis.

The tone of Lady Bird is a bit unusual and at times it can be difficult to tell where Gerwig is going for a laugh. Typically this would be a problem but it actually works here. There is a quirky awkwardness throughout much of the film that feels like real life instead of being manufactured for a movie. Often the moments that made me laugh the hardest were met with silence by others in the audience I saw it with, while some scenes got big laughs from others that just hit me as too real and painful for me to laugh at. Whatever responses different moments elicit from different members of its audience, Lady Bird is incredibly effective at engaging its audience. It is that sense of reality and honesty that is undeniable throughout the movie.

The lead character herself could have felt too much like a screenwriter’s creation but, thanks to Gerwig’s script and Ronan’s performance, Lady Bird is a decidedly believable teenage girl. Lady Bird is trying to reinvent herself from day to day, sometimes saying and doing things just for the sake of being edgy, which is of course classic teenage behavior. If the writing or performance had been different this could have made the character and ultimately the film insufferable. Thankfully though even if we might shake our heads at Lady Bird at times we can’t help but continue to root for her and stay on her side, because we know we’re shaking our heads at our teenage selves just a little bit. Her vulnerability and her inner strength are both present at every moment which is a real testament to Ronan’s wonderful work here.

Gerwig really does get a lot right about being a teenager who wants to leave a boring town and about going to Catholic school. I went to a Catholic elementary school from kindergarten through second grade in the late ‘80s which granted is not quite the same as a Catholic high school in the early aughts but still, the atmosphere feels just right. The faculty (which includes nuns and priests) is not as strict and humorless as one might think – no one gets wrapped on the knuckles with a ruler – and the kids are just normal kids. You wear a uniform and you say a prayer before the Pledge of Allegiance but math and English are still math and English and your classmates can be just as kind or as cruel as they are anyplace else. Gerwig and the ensemble cast bring Lady Bird’s school to terrifically realistic life.

What makes Lady Bird so special though beyond being a very good coming-of-age movie is its portrayal of the lead character’s relationship with her mother. The transition between being at each other’s throats to sharing excitement over a thrift store dress find is instantaneous. The scenes between Ronan and Metcalf are beautifully nuanced and incredibly genuine. Each will almost certainly garner well-deserved Actress and Supporting Actress Oscar nominations respectively. More than that however, these performances will leave a lasting mark on those who watch them.

Lady Bird is a gem of a movie and one of the best of 2017. Highly recommended.

Stories about death, deferred dreams, broken families and old wounds don’t immediately resonate as fodder for children’s films. But Pixar’s latest entry, Coco, attempts to tackle these subjects and more. Stunningly, they not only manage to craft an accessible and entertaining fable, but they also express profound observations about legacy, familial heritage and the power of art to unite and to heal.

Directedby Pixar alum Lee Unkrich, Coco tells the story of young Miguel, who longs to be a musician like his hero, Ernesto de la Cruz. He has tremendous talent to substantiate his dream, but his family has forbidden even listening to music, let alone playing it, due to a generations old wound where their great-great-grandfather abandoned his family with ambitions of “playing his songs for the world”. When Miguel rebels against his family’s restrictions on the annual Dia de los Muertos celebration, he finds himself trapped inside the land of the dead, with only a few hours before sunrise to return home before he will be stuck there forever.

In typical Pixar fashion, Coco is visually staggering. The studio has continually pushed the boundaries of what is possible in animation and Coco is no exception. Nearly every frame is bursting with vibrance and richly textured colors. The realm of the dead is breathtaking. It is elegant and lovely, fully realized as a cohesive world, and delightfully macabre without ever being scary. The visuals have a lyricism that supplement and harmonize the musical soundscape also permeating the film.

As a connective tissue, music plays a substantive role in both the narrative and the themes of Coco. There is a deliberate relationship between music and memory that serves a specific narrative function, but also plants seeds for further thought and reflection beyond the film itself. Coco is, in many ways, an exploration of and love letter to the power of music to unite, to inspire, and even to restore. There are expectedly entertaining anthemic performances, but one of the film’s most deeply moving moments revolves around a simple lullaby sung by a father to his little girl. The subtle beauty of it creates a ripple impact through the rest of the story and its characters in a powerful and emotional way. Since this is Pixar, you probably already presumed you’d need at least a few tissues ready and you’re absolutely right.

But the exploration delves deeper than mere sentiment. Music in this film is inextricably tied to heritage and to cultural and familial identity. It is a key which unlocks long-bolted doorways and a thread which ties generations together. The film’s opening exposition establishes music as a source of division and pain, and the inevitable reconciliation the story gives us is – although somewhat predictable – deeply moving. There are indeed certain narrative clichés where the film’s characters and story beats can easily be intuited. Although there are effective reveals and surprises to the story, there are also plenty of moments where you’ll likely whisper, “I knew that was gonna happen.” But the overall narrative is so refreshingly inventive that the occasional familiar trope is easily forgiven and doesn’t dilute the story’s delights or emotional impact.

The film also has a great deal to say about the tension between the sacrifices we make for our dreams and the ones we make for our families. Countless stories have tackled this tension before, but precious few have ever managed to marry the value of both dreams and heritage as organically as Coco does. The films makes a solid case that dreams can extend from heritage and that the two need not be at odds with one another. It’s also deeply refreshing that the film embraces the culture at its center without even a hint of appropriation.

But the most impactful element of Coco is in its focus on memory. While the film touches on issues of identity, ambition, and even long-standing generational pain, the heart of the story is in remembering. I’d have to spoil too much to fully explain the link the film makes between heritage and hopes, as well as family and legacy, but suffice it to say that sometimes the very thing you’re trying desperately to forget may be the one memory needed to heal and restore all that’s been lost and broken.

With Coco, Pixar once again adds a rich and powerful story to their already impressive catalogue. Its visuals, its soundtrack, and its thematic explorations are lovely and entertaining. It’s funny and macabre, emotional and inspiring. In short, it’s a beautiful film you’ll likely never forget.

What’s the one thing that could make or a break a bleak romantic drama focused on the unstoppable love of two despairing individuals? The answer… chemistry. Unfortunately for Gabe Kliger’s European art/indie feature Porto (2017), it had none.

It’s not that Porto is a bad film necessarily, indeed, I enjoy parts of its filmmaking very much. An inventive and considerate camera does its best to dissect the strangely incoherent and dreamscape world of the film. I even caught sight of a few early Truffaut/Godard style camera moves, shots that seemed to reminisce the film’s own appreciation for new wave works such as Jules and Jim (1962) or A Woman Is a Woman (1961). Technically, the film stands on its own, with just enough cinematic beauty and creativity to run its course. The problem is this… emotionally, Porto seemed to think I was way more invested in its character’s and narrative than I actually was.

Let’s start at the beginning. Produced by Jim Jarmusch (very interested so far) the film stars Anton Yelchin (still very interested) and Lucie Lucas (I’m all ears) as two lost individuals searching for meaning and passion in their otherwise emotionally solitary lives. Yelchin’s ‘Jake’ is more unknown, a secluded loner travelling from location to location as a cheap labourer. Lucas’s ‘Mati’ has a family, a seemingly supportive husband and a child, but regardless, is still as disconnected from the ever-moving world around her as Jake is. The film, put simply, is about an unstoppable love; the narrative focuses on Mati’s emotional dilemma of leaving her partner, her structured and predictable, yet ultimately unfulfilling life for the exciting prospect of Jake’s almost obsessive admiration for her (where do I sign up?). To add to this, both main actors create perfectly plausible characters, each bringing to their roles an appropriately painful emotional hole to be filled by the presence of one another. Everything falls neatly into place for an interesting and thoughtful movie – but wait… here comes the script to kick down the set and chew on the scenery.

Maybe I was being a little harsh in suggesting the performers had no chemistry, there’s a glimmer here and there, but the script’s dialogue and narrative does all it can in stamping to death on what little they can provide. The film has three chapters, one following Jake before and after he spends the night with Mati, one following Mati before and after she spends the night with Jake, and one following them both in showing the night they keep referencing throughout the first two chapters. The problem is that, the first two chapters find it difficult to portray Jake and Mati as already romantically devoted since the film hasn’t invested any time in getting to know them as a unit, but going further, it doesn’t give much access to them as individuals either… who are they as people? What do they most fear? What are their hopes and dreams for the future? We need to know at least something about them before the constant whisperings of ‘sweet nothings’ has any impact whatsoever.

Because of this, the film’s script goes on to assume its audience are more invested than they actually are. The apparently unstoppable and obsessive love between these people just ends up feeling forced, more like an act of desperation and hopelessness than one of love and passion. When Jake turns to Mati and lovingly declares “I’m not even trying to love you, I just… love you.” I was meanwhile thinking, “I’m not even trying to find this scene empty, it’s just… empty.” At times, the script seems to resort to screaming its message directly into our ears; “I know what you’re going to say and you know what I’m going to say before either one of us even says it… and I’ll tell you the really freaky part, it doesn’t feel like a matter of choice.” Lines like this feel like they’ve dropped directly out the mouths of Chanel’s marketing team – the latest efforts to sell their new range of seductive smelling perfumes. The over-dramatized dialogue might have worked if Jake and Mati’s love was presented through hardship and adversity, through the sometimes stress and pressure that being in a romantic relationship can bring. Instead, it turns out just being way too easy; they kept seeing each other in bars and on farms, they spoke, they had sex, kissed a little… yet because of that we’re expected to invest in them as a couple steeped in caring love? Love evolves through life experience, through two people enjoying each other’s discovered positives, yet also overcoming each other’s uncovered negatives. I didn’t hate the film by any means, but I’m afraid in order to stop its script feeling hollow, more work was needed in developing its central relationship into something I could really invest in. And so, by the film’s end, as much as I really wanted to, I couldn’t care less if Jake and Mati got together or not.

Something special was possible for Porto, its talent, narrative and aesthetic all work on a relatively high level, but without that one thing – without that chemistry, the film’s heart and soul is missing. What we’re left with is a shell that seems to enjoy itself more than we are enjoying it. The film is like being forced to watch a super energetic and exaggerated musical just after a loving family member has died tragically – you can understand what the fun musical is trying to do, but because of the disconnect from how you’re feeling, it just comes off as annoying and frustrating.

]]>http://morethanonelesson.com/empty-passion-by-darrell-tuffs/feed/0A Time to Laugh, by Reed Lackeyhttp://morethanonelesson.com/a-time-to-laugh-by-reed-lackey/
http://morethanonelesson.com/a-time-to-laugh-by-reed-lackey/#respondThu, 02 Nov 2017 18:53:12 +0000http://morethanonelesson.com/?p=5449Superhero movies are supposed to be filled with action, suspense, and occasionally gravitas. Very few of them, if any, have ever been focused primarily on laughs. Sure, the occasional witty catch phrase or clever retort has always been a functional element of superhero stories (I’m looking at you Spidey). But rarely, if ever, has a legitimized superhero film attempted to be a straight-forward comedy.

Enter Thor: Ragnarok. Led by rising director Taika Waititi, this adventure goes beyond previous forays into light-hearted storytelling that we saw with Ant-Man and even the very first Iron Man installment to structure its rhythm with humor rather than suspense. There are rarely more than five minutes which go by without either a funny line of dialogue, a clever sight gag, or even a direct slapstick punchline. The results are a film which will massively appeal to anyone wanting a fun time at the cinema, but will likely disappoint those who prefer the grittier and edgier trend of films like The Dark Knight, Batman V Superman, or even the Captain America films.

The premise is surprisingly rather grave. A prophecy foretells that the fire god Surtur will arise to bring forth Ragnarok, a destructive apocalypse which will annihilate all of Asgard. Believing he has successfully stopped it, Thor returns to Asgard only to discover that his trickster brother Loki, has set in motion a chain of events which threatens to bring about something even worse than Ragnarok: the return of their long-banished sister, Hela – the Goddess of Death (played by Cate Blanchett). The particulars of the plot deserve to be experienced as they occur, so suffice it to say that the first thirty minutes leaves precious little hope for a happy ending.

Except that the laughs literally never slow down. With so much persistent levity, there is a constant thread of confidence that somehow all will be well. And while this did manage to undermine some of the threat and suspense, it was a veritable breath of pure, fresh air. It was all but impossible not to smile at the sheer wackiness of Thor’s and Loki’s adventure through a distant planet that seems to somehow be in love with 1980s Earth. The retro-futuristic style of both the settings and the soundscape tap into the current trend in film and television to acknowledge that most of us kinda miss the 80s and the fun most of our entertainment had then.

If you’ve seen the trailers for this film, you’ll know of at least one friendly character who shows up and I’m delighted to tell you that there are a couple of other surprises in store as well. Meanwhile, Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston seem to be having more fun than they’ve had since the first Avengers film. Cate Blanchett deliciously embraces her villainous role and Mark Ruffalo proves yet again why we adore both The Hulk and Puny Banner. But adding both a level of meta-fandom and an even greater sense of comic absurdity is the hysterical performance by Jeff Goldblum, who gobbles up every possible moment like it’s a fat, juicy steak. His presence cements the film’s intention to make you laugh as often as possible and Waititi clearly gave each of the performers a blank check to indulge as much of their comedic fancy as they wished (it’s even reported that the majority of the individual dialogue was improvised).

But this is not to say that there are no stakes or gravity whatsoever. By the film’s end, I was shocked to discover that at least four things had irrevocably changed for some of our characters. The film surprisingly defies the typical tradition to reset everything back to normalcy by the end credits. By the time this adventure concludes, Asgard and its people (including Thor) will never be the same. Yet, through it all, the film never misses a beat to subvert what would otherwise be an opportunity for raw emotion or even melodrama and spin a clever joke immediately afterwards. Every hard shot of liquor has an ice-cold, refreshing chaser waiting right on its heels. There are a handful of sweet and even moving character beats, but they never make more than a brief cameo appearance before we’re right back into the circus again.

The result is one of Marvel’s most accessibly delightful films yet. Even if you know nothing of the character histories, the backgrounds of certain object mechanics, or even the weight behind certain smaller interactions, the film gives you just enough context to make the proper connections and enough energy to propel you past any potential question marks.

If you’re in the mood for something heavy and dour, this isn’t your film. But goodness gracious – if you want to have a fun, great time at the movies – you need to see Thor: Ragnarok as fast as you possibly can.

Ridley Scott’s 1982 classic Blade Runner has become one of the most debated films ever made. Film buffs debate which cut of the film is best and they debate whether or not Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a human or a replicant. Where viewers come down on the Deckard question can depend in large part on which version of the movie they prefer. Even the director and star have disagreed about it for decades with Scott insisting, “He is definitely a replicant,” while Ford played the role believing his character to be human. 35 years later and 10 years after the release of Blade Runner: The Final Cut, Ford is back as Deckard while the question still looms.

Set 30 years after the original film, Blade Runner 2049 shows that things have only gotten worse for the world (or at least Los Angeles) since 2019. While this is a film that raises far more questions than it answers, it tells us in its opening moments that K (Ryan Gosling), a LAPD “blade runner,” is in fact a replicant. In a time when replicants are easier to spot than they used to be, K is greeted with open hostility both at the precinct and at his apartment building.

One of the elements that makes Blade Runner 2049 so fascinating is how, despite the mystery surrounding so much of its story and its world, it is unambiguously giving us a protagonist who is not human. Screenwriters Hampton Fancher and Michael Green and director Denis Villeneuve (Arrival) choose to show us many private moments with a character we know isn’t “real.” As a result, audience members can question themselves about why they may or may not care about K the way they would any other “real” fictional character. It is comforting to know that even now, a big budget Hollywood sequel can get audiences to ask this kind of philosophical question, as we wonder who is worthy of our sympathy and why. Beyond that, it gets us thinking about how we would view and treat replicants were they to become a reality. It’s a smart decision on the part of the filmmakers to make K’s identity as a replicant clear because it speaks to the heart of what Blade Runner 2049 is exploring thematically.

The other reason it’s smart is that it sets this sequel off immediately in its own direction. While this is a film that could only take place in the world established by the original Blade Runner, it has a unique feel of its own. Yes, it is another detective story set largely in a rainy Los Angeles, but the future noir look of the first movie has given way to a universe that is brighter and more metallic. While society has continued to break down, structures have become more polished. The bright, shiny interiors of the LAPD station K works in suggest the sense of order the department is trying to project even as the city deteriorates around them.

Saying much more about the story would be to give away major plot points that the film’s advertising campaign wisely went to great lengths to keep under wraps. Suffice it to say that Jared Leto’s Niander Wallace has picked up where the now defunct Tyrell Corporation left off in the manufacturing of replicants and that K eventually needs help from “the old blade runner” himself to solve his case, while maybe answering some other major questions along the way.

Blade Runner 2049 is a film that demands and – I have no doubt – will reward repeat viewings. I suspect it is the sort of movie where its original reviews will be fascinating to revisit years from now as well. Like the original, this should inspire lengthy examinations decades down the line, written by people who will have seen the film numerous times over several years, knowing every frame inside and out. These writers will also have the benefit of not needing to worry about spoilers. I would like to be one of them.

This is no ordinary movie, either to experience or digest. You really do owe it to yourself to see it in the theater to fully appreciate the most beautifully shot film made in a long time. Not surprisingly Roger Deakins (The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, Fargo, Skyfall) is the director of photography and he may have outdone himself here. The film’s production designer Dennis Gassner has worked alongside Deakins many times (Skyfall and several Coen Brothers’ films) and together they’ve created a deeply immersive, visually jaw-dropping world for Villeneuve to tell a remarkable story in. The only film in 2017 to rival it as a cinematic experience is Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk.

Not to be overlooked is the strong emotional component of Blade Runner 2049, handled terrifically by Villeneuve and his cast. In the original movie it was surprisingly the villain, replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) who really gave the film its heart (which is especially apparent in The Final Cut). One could argue that his “tears in the rain” monologue just before his death is the single biggest reason why we remember Blade Runner for more than its visuals 35 years later. In 2049, Deckard’s storyline packs more emotional punch than his did in the first movie. In a smaller role than we’re used to seeing him in, Harrison Ford delivers one of the finest performances of his career here. Whether Deckard is a human or a replicant, he has experienced real loss and pain. Gosling as K meanwhile projects a deep sense of sadness. He seems to know that not being human means there are things that he will never be able to experience, lamenting the fact that he knows his childhood memories are fictional implants.

I am not going to boldly proclaim one way or the other that this is or is not a stronger film than the first Blade Runner. Right now I couldn’t say. Only time and repeat viewings will tell. But that’s not really what matters. Denis Villeneuve has made a sequel to a classic movie that is excellent in its own right and that thankfully does not lean on audience nostalgia. Blade Runner 2049 is far better than we ever could have reasonably hoped for and for now at least, that should be enough.

One of the more difficult things to pull off in a film is a successful shift in tone. It’s even more difficult when a filmmaker shifts back and forth between tones throughout a movie. Altered Spirits attempts to do this several times over the span of 90 minutes but unfortunately it just leaves the viewer repeatedly asking, “What does this movie want to be?”

It’s hard to tell from the film’s first few scenes just how seriously it’s taking itself. First, we’re introduced to two men and a woman who appear to possibly be pirates as they find an unconscious young man lying in the desert. They speak in grandiose terms of a portal being opened before we cut to the young man we just saw in a car with three friends. He and his pals share some banter as they drive out to a sweat lodge. It hints at a possible twist on the opening of a “cabin in the woods” style horror movie. Four people in their twenties have a lighthearted conversation before they arrive at their destination and the chaos begins. This could have been effective had the banter been stronger. This ends up being an indicator of really the entire movie that follows.

Written by Peter Bohush (who also directs), Joseph Medina, and Stephen Weese (who also stars as Scott), Altered Spirits tries to do many things but doesn’t really do any of them particularly well. The early comedic tone falls almost entirely flat before giving way to the much darker meat of the film, in which the friends find themselves separated, all forced to relive the worst moments of their lives. These scenes work a bit better taken on their own but following the goofy humor of the earlier scenes and intercut with more attempted comedy focused on the charlatan that runs the sweat lodge (Richard Epcar), they feel like they belong in a different movie. Imagine if Sam Raimi had tried to fuse Army of Darkness and A Simple Plan (two wonderful films that have decidedly different aims) into one movie and you get some idea of where Altered Spirits goes wrong in its second act.

Altered Spirits is a low-budget film and of course there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s even the sort of thing that a filmmaker could use to his or her advantage and if this had really committed to one tone and done it well then this movie could have worked. As it is, the writing is pretty clunky and the actors are largely inexperienced working on camera. (A number of the leads have extensive anime voice credits to their names.) As a result the performances tend to be either a little too big or a little too small. Allyson Floyd who plays a reporter looking into strange goings on at the sweat lodge is an exception and gives a solid performance. Unfortunately her role is relatively small but had the film been focused on her, Altered Spirits would have at least had a pretty good lead performance going for it. Epcar’s greasy fraud schtick almost works and in a more consistent movie with better lines for him to deliver his character and performance could have been a lot of fun. One can almost imagine the writers picturing Bruce Campbell as they worked, again bringing it around to Army of Darkness.

There is a sense of ambition here that is admirable but unfortunately that ambition leads to a messy film that tries to be too many things at once and relies more heavily on its low-budget visual effects than it should. It’s clear that everyone involved cares and if nothing else, Altered Spirits is not boring. Sadly, the film still leaves much to be desired.